


We're Not That Stupid (We're Ten Times Worse)

by purplesucculent



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Not much tho, Some angst, bc i can't stand no happy endings! happy endings for all, i just love these dumb bitches so i had to honour their dumb bitchery, kind of crack tbh but there u go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25923430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplesucculent/pseuds/purplesucculent
Summary: Nicky and Joe's chaos knows no bounds: from hating anchovies to threatening to kill an undisclosed, famous Renaissance artist.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	We're Not That Stupid (We're Ten Times Worse)

**Author's Note:**

> This is dumb as fuck but I wrote it, and now it's here? I hope someone enjoys it?

_**Florence** _

_**Sometime in the 1400s**_

Nico slammed the door behind him as he entered their villa. Shit, Joe wondered what had happened.

“I swear to any higher power that lowers Themself to listen to this conversation-”

Drama queen.

“Nicolò, what happened this time? You know, I’ve told you that if Leonardo bothers you I will-” he sighed in response to his lover’s outburst. Things had been going like this for the past few months, ever since Nicolò had taken up working for Signor da Vinci.

Hey, they had to make money somehow and it was Nico’s century to pull that weight so, he’d become the artist’s… well, secretary. Running around, completing errands, fetching paints, etcetera. Not the job he’d wanted. He was thinking more along the lines of model but hey, Joe needed to eat, Nico wasn’t going to let him go hungry.

“Joe, Joe, Joe!” he whined, walking through the doorway into their bedroom overlooking Florence.

“What?!”

“He made me,” - pausing to gag - “fetch him anchovies, cook them, and then eat them with him for lunch!”

Joe was confused. Nico thought he was possibly displaying some traits of psychopathy but wisely kept that to himself. “Anchovies, Joseph!”

“Right, and what are those?” Nicolò had just about reached the amount of tomfoolery his temper could take today. First Leonardo's unusally bitchy, bitchy-ness and now his Joseph, playing a fool on purpose? - No, it's too much.

“'Anchovies' is the name that _the_ hairy fish goes by nowadays.”

A retching sound that could have rivalled that of several gods erupted from Joe.

“Oh, I’m going to kill that man.”

(Joe was going to make it his sole mission to end this man’s entire career. Leonardo da Vinci wouldn’t last another decade after making his Nicolò eat that dastardly fish.)

_**Narixa (Modern Day Nerja, Southern Spain)** _

__

_**Sometime in the 1200s** _

It hadn’t been long since they’d stopped fighting each other. At least until their respective deaths. Maybe twenty-five years since their last fight that ended in one of them dying. A fight with both of them dying though? They’d managed a few of those since. (Mainly because one couldn’t bear to wait for the other to return from death. Endless Romeo and Juliet cycle - although, they wouldn’t know that yet. Who’s to say they didn’t inspire Shakespeare?)

Anyway. They had arrived in Narixa a few days ago. Yusuf had said it might have been safe (ish) for them there. The country, al-Andalus (Modern Day Southern Spain), was under gradually dwindling Muslim rule. It would make sense for them both to be there in each other's company. Well. Maybe not. But they wouldn't raise more eyebrows than was necessary. Hopefully. This was turning out to maybe not go as smoothly as they'd planned.

Nicolò was _very_ sceptical. He had only just begun to completely trust Yusuf as of recent. He just hope that neither of them would be dying any time soon.

Neither of them could handle it when the other died. They had each seen the other die too many times. They had been their only companions for over a hundred years and subsequently, a bond had grown between them. A string from Yusuf’s soul to Nicolò’s. Although they hadn’t quite realised it until their previous deaths. Last time Yusuf died it had been at the hand of bandits on a dark night. He had woken to see Nicolò surrounded by their attackers’ corpses, looking as if he was going to keel over. Which he did, approximately two seconds later.

Yusuf rushed over to Nicolò’s body, pulling his head into his lap and tracing his hand down the other’s blood-stained face. Tears started to fill his eyes.

“Nicolò, Nicolò, please,” he whispered, pressing his face closer to Nicolò’s, “Wake up.”

A few moments passed as Yusuf sat, curled up over Nicolò’s unresponsive body, then, at long last, Nicolò’s hand moved to grab Yusuf’s hand covering his face, sliding his fingers into the other's firm grasp.

Yusuf let out a gasp of breath and a sob he had been holding in, moving forward so that he could kiss the man lying in his arms with a sense of urgency and determination. Which Nicolò eagerly returned. And then some.

It was at this point that they had realised what they had come to mean to each other. And thus, made a pact that they would do whatever they could in their power to keep one another safe for as long as they continued to live this strange life.

But I digress.

Yusuf had managed to find them an inn for the night, as well as a job for tomorrow, and things seemed to be going too smoothly, in Nicolò’s opinion.

Before they were to return to their room at the inn, they had eaten dinner. Yusuf had steered clear of the somewhat hairy looking fish that Nicolò had eaten with a rather disturbing fervour, and only eaten the bread they had been given instead.

“I don’t think that looks… like something that is to be eaten.” Yusuf said, turning his head to the side to get a better look at the fish on Nicolò’s plate. Gross. He was still learning about some of the Frankish customs. Some were strange. Some were down right disgusting: he had only just convinced Nicolò that bathing was something that needed to be done more than once a year.

“It’s a fish! What could be bad about it, Yusuf?” Nicolò responded as he took another mouthful of the suspicious fish, “Please explain to me how these tiny fish could be dangerous?”

“It kind of looks… hairy, my heart.”

Nicolò laughed and almost choked on some of the fish.

“Hairy?”

“Yes, and overly grey.” Yusuf had begun to look at his lover with genuine concern at this point. “I once knew a man who ate strange coloured fish and it resulted in him vomiting until he died.”

“Now you are making fun of me and my fish, amore mio.” Nicolò said, glaring slightly in return.

“I promise that I am not! I just don’t wish to see you die any time soon!” explained Yusuf, spreading his hands out in front of himself, as if to make him appear more genuine. Nicolò couldn’t tell if he was joking or not at this point.

It was in this moment that Nicolò had attempted to swallow a rather large, hairy and chunky portion of fish. ‘Attempted’ being the key word there, as he did not manage to swallow it. He began to choke.

“Ha ha, Nico, very funny,” said Yusuf as Nicolò began to choke across the table from him. “It is not funny, in case my previous statement did not make that clear.”

Nicolò reached over the table and grasped Yusuf’s hands, still coughing violently, peering up into his eyes with an intense desperation.

“Oh, fuck.”

***

Later that night once they had returned to the inn, after he had briefly died, Nicolò lay down on their bed and stared at the ceiling as the moon lit the room from their window. Yusuf followed him suit, curling up next to his lover and placing his palm on Nicolò’s face.

Nicolò was speechless. Genuinely speechless. How could he- He died from choking on some fish! He was a knight! A warrior! And he was bested by some strange fucking fish?-

“Nico,” Yusuf prodded, pulling on his clothing slightly as if to draw him out of his trance, “I love you.”

Nicolò rolled his eyes up even further up towards the ceiling, then he turned to face him.

“Really?” he asked, grabbing Yusuf’s hand. _(A fish! A fucking fish! It was as big as his finger! **That** had killed him?-)_

“With a thousand heart’s worth of love and then some, Nico” Yusuf whispered, pressing Nicolò’s knuckles to his lips. Nicolò smiled.

“Even though I died choking on a piece of fucking hairy fish?”

“If I ever see another one of those again, I will personally end their entire species for you, my heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the word 'anchovy' nay not have appeared until waaaay after the Renaissance but once my mind was on this track, I couldn't get out of it. Uh, so, I gift you with this chaotic fucking piece of writing.
> 
> (I actually put in "when did they invent the word for anchovies" in google dot com, so I hope my FBI agent isn't too worried about my search history which also contains "when did they invent bread" and "why were there so many dinosaurs")


End file.
